100 Themes Poem: “Death and Pigeons at Dawn”

The magic is in the revision.

That’s something I had to remind myself about, while writing this poem.

You see, the first draft of this was just … so … BLAH. I wrote it in my notebook late at night before bed, and in spite of the “inspired” feeling that started it, it wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped.

Since this was not the first attempt to respond to the next 100 Themes word — which, by the way, was

GRAY

— I started to worry that my well was running dry and that I was a terrible poet after all.

Maybe that’s true, but after a little revision, I feel I’m a bit *less* terrible than I worried. 🙂

Let that be a reminder to us all … don’t get down on yourself until you’ve had a chance to revise. That first draft is raw material, mere seed and soil you can use to grow something much worthier of sharing!

So, for the love of poetry, don’t stop writing just because your first drafts are coming out smelling like fertilizer.

Anyway. Here is the next 100 Themes poem, “Death and Pigeons at Dawn” … about the moment when morning comes, and the struggle to stay afloat starts all over again.

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Death and Pigeons at Dawn

With morning, the pigeon alights by my pillow, bearing
on his wing a tiny death. He shudders it off
in clouds of building-site dust that settle
in the waking eye. The death coos in dreaming ears
before the mouth has a thought to pray.

Around my head my old friend flies, a dream
the dawnlight forgot to chase. He’ll come again. I cannot catch him
with hands floating far in the deep, where in a swell of cold
the dark things rise to nip my fingertips.

I feel it, now. The death burrows deeper, through the eardrum
and the eye’s thick jelly as fog rolls up and in,
recoloring all I saw. What was green, now silver. Gray again.

It was you I saw, last morning: it was sun in my eye
and dew on the lens. A ray through a thin-veined leaf.

I forgot death flies in dreams.

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Well.

That’s that.

I’ve shared my pigeon … now what piece is lying around in your notebook or hard drive, begging to see the light of day? Could a little revision help?

Or, on the other hand, if it’s still rolling around in your head … maybe you could lay down some fertilizer?